


Sacrament

by Han_shot_first



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: British English, British Slang, F/M, Gen, Irish Slang (but only a bit), London
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han_shot_first/pseuds/Han_shot_first
Summary: O Sacrament most Holy,O Sacrament Divine,All praise and all thanksgiving,Be every moment Thine
Relationships: Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 44





	1. The house of my soul is narrow

"Lord, grant me chastity and continence... but not yet." - St Augustine of Hippo, 354 – 430 AD

\--- + + + ---

_It hadn’t been what she needed._

The thought went round his head, heavy and spinny like a washing machine. He felt rotten and soiled. He couldn’t stand to sit on his narrow single bed, its snowy white duvet mocking him with its chasteness, let alone try to sleep. Pacing across the bedroom, he felt every inch of the pale, simple carpet beneath his black socked feet. The double-glazed windows to his right were tilted open to let in the crisp London night air, but he felt little relief. His eyes stung with the knowledge of what he had done. Pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, he felt wrung out.

He started towards the walnut-paned sliding doors of his wardrobe and began disrobing. The cossack came off slowly. To his shame, some of the thirty three buttons, meant to symbolise the thirty three years of Christ’s life on earth, had already been unfastened. He pulled off the white plastic collarette and placed in a drawer with the others. He hung the cossack on a carved pine hangar and stroked the fabric softly, lovingly, as he thought of the words of Ezekiel, recorded over two and a half thousand years before the coming of Christ. 

The soft tenor of his voice broke the silent sanctum of his bedroom. “When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments. They shall have nothing of wool on them, while they minister at the gates of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen turbans on their heads, and linen undergarments around their waists. They shall not bind themselves with anything that causes sweat. And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers. And they shall put on other garments, lest they transmit holiness to the people with their garments.” 

He sighed and bowed his head. He really was a nerd for the fashion. Maybe even an idolater. He had been so eager for it. Very few of the religious clergy even wore the ankle-length black cossacks in public anymore. For one, they were stiflingly hot. And secondly, they were so old fashioned. Most opted for a simple priest’s shirt and collarette, if they wore clerical vestments in public at all. 

All ecclesiastical vestments were imbued with so much meaning. 

And the first point was to set him apart from the world. It helped to centre his mind to his work. It changed how people looked at him; it turned him into _Father_ , priest, shepherd of a flock. A man who served them, but stood apart from them.

“ _Mḗ mou háptou_. Cease holding onto me,” he whispered.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. He burst into tears, and clutched at his cassock. He wept, spilling his regret into the ecclesiastical vestment. The fabric soaked up his pain and sorrow. Abruptly, he pulled it away roughly and checked the tag: 45% wool; 55% polyester; Dry Clean Only; Made in Italy.

He couldn’t help it. He turned rolled eyes upwards towards heaven and let out a rueful laugh. He knew as well as all the rest of the clergy that the rules had been changed. It was all wool and silks now, cottons and polyester. Not a spot of linen to be found. And definitely no turbans.

He pushed the slightly mangled garment away and closed the sliding doors. 

“I know it wasn’t exactly what she had needed,” he started, rubbing his cheeks and feeling the stubble growth. His impromptu discussions with God were always like this: God was just another person in the room. 

“I know it was wrong, but I’m not sure how it was wrong. I just know it wasn’t exactly what she needed. And that’s why it was wrong.”

He angrily balled up his clerical shirt and threw into the laundry hamper, followed by his socks and underwear. Feeling wretched, he stepped nude into the en-suite shower room, an aberration in the shared nature of the brotherhood he shared with his order. 

It was a leftover from the days when the house had been a simple, traditional four bedroom family home, before it was purchased by the diocese. His room would have been shared by at least one other priest, and the whole house would have bustled with others of his order. 

After Patrick died, Pam had taken it upon herself to organise the house for the new priest. 

And then, in that way of women of a certain age and bearing of the Catholic Church, she had just stuck around. She made the point that the diocese could use the rent, the house needed maintenance and regular housekeeping, and who better than she, who ran a housekeeping service and had been a parishioner and pillar of the community for decades? She was divorced and strictly celibate, but saw her grown children regularly. Her community was the church, and all of her clients were nearby. 

“It simply makes good sense to be flatmates,” she argued. “I’m sure the bishop can be persuaded to evolve with the times!” 

Under the relentless pressure, he’d caved. He took the coward’s route and instead of an email or phone call, he sent an honest to God letter to his bishop that proposed the unusual living arrangements. In an attempt to salvage some control, he made it clear it was on an initial six month trial basis, and on a monthly rolling contract thereafter.

The twinkle in Pam’s eyes told him that she knew precisely how invaluable she was about to become. 

And bless her, she really did make the best jerk chicken and rice and peas he’d ever had. The house was spotless, though he always did his share of cleaning and tidying. He did some careful research, ensured she was paid above the living wage, and kept her rent very reasonable, especially for extortionate London rates. 

In return, under her exuberant guidance, he was introduced to the parishioners, given the gossip whether he wanted it or not, and shown where every single item in the church cupboards was kept, not that he could remember anything. He was stupidly grateful when she smiled fondly at his restaurant reviews, and gratified when she advised him towards the better cafés in the area. He wondered now why Hillary's wasn't one of them.

In the evenings, he’d indulge in watching the football, rugby, and Gaelic games if they were on, and although she didn’t care for any of them, she would suffer it for a little while if he ordered them a takeaway first, and tear into naan bread and tandoori with enthusiastic gusto as he extolled the virtues of this player or that.

She just hated when he started shouting at the refs on the telly. Hated any loud noises, really. It reminded her too much of her ex-husband. And he could never begrudge her for that. Not when he saw her shut down with haunted eyes and an angry, pinched mouth.

Standing under the hot shower, he moaned softly as the alcohol and aches began to twist apart and unwind. He bowed his head, leaning his arms across for a deep stretch into his shoulders and neck. He thought of the confessional. Of _her_.

He thought of how he had connected with something, but not what she had _needed_. It was close, but it wasn’t _right_. That had been the real vow broken. Not the heat of a kiss, or the rush of giving into passion.

Of breaking the vow to serve.

“Father, forgive me,” he whispered, his eyes closed. The voice was small but no less meaningful under the spray of the water. He knew he was being heard.

“I wanted what I could take. I thought I could give her what I once gave to others, what I only should give to you. My sacrifice. What I promised to give to you, offer through you, forever. And it was wrong. And I want to do it again. Again and again. God help me, I want to do it again.”

He felt his cock harden, and tried so hard not to think about it. To reject thinking about what he could take from her. Could he serve himself, and serve God, and serve her too? Give them what they all needed, all at once? 

Was that possible? 

Twisting passions inflamed him. How many masters could one have? 

The seminary had taught him too well. 

_One or none. Better to marry than to burn._

“Why, Father? Why is this so difficult?”

 _It wouldn’t be a sacrifice if it was easy,_ he felt as an answer, deep in the truth of his soul, where the memories of drugs, alcohol, fucking, and meaningless existence melted into years and years of aching loneliness and haunting numbness. Time had stretched into a pinpoint of dancing pointlessness. 

If he wanted to get high, he got high.

If he wanted to fuck, he fucked.

But if he wanted to feel loved, he got nothing at all.

There was no spontaneousness left in the world. The beauty was gone, chased away by grey days and orangey red nights of sweaty, piss-stained corridors and greasy eyeliner. Feeling arms and legs around him, not knowing the name of this girl or that guy, but wanting the connection all the same.

And nothing was there. At all.

Oh, he understood her need. He’d seen it, and felt it in the hazy morning drizzle of an Irish funereal morning. The mist that never cleared and the soot off the walls of the old man pubs that were all now, so sadly, officially smoke-free. The ceilings now revealed old damp patches and ancient nicotine stains. The walls showed lines where they once hung photos of his grandparents, his aunts and uncles. They had moved slightly, or shrunken? The lines were there in the wallpaper.

His ma, with her arm around a girl they said was her best friend at the factory. The old bartender shook his head and would say nothing more. 

“Where’s your brother now then? Still on the lorry?”

What the regulars don’t ask is why he isn’t in jail. 

He drank more and more and tried to banish the memories of the uncle with the wandering hands. The aunties who fled to the nunneries. 

He remembers Aunt Jean who came back with a babe in her arms; she runs an arts and crafts store in Cork now, and her son, cousin Domhnall, is a rather successful engineer in Leeds these days. If his father is a Father, she’s never said, but he can read between the lines like all the other Irish Catholics who’ve never spoken a word. Domhnall is a solid bloke, and an atheist to his marrow bones; he really can’t fault him for it, but it makes the former Sister Agatha withdraw from the conversation entirely. He can’t blame her for that either.

He contrasts the painful memories with the simple joy of being friends with his new parishioners. To be buzzed into their flats or be sat by their bedsides in hospitals, seeing their eyes lit with peace and joy when they see he has come with great craic and brought them the Eucharist. To hear their stories of their lives, hear their gripes and pains, and become part of the tapestry of their days.

To be of service. To be needed. 

Need was there when he saw her kneeling before him. Need and desire.

It brought him to his knees in front of her, his mouth filling hers, taking that need and making it his own. 

She was the first person in years to be in his mouth who wasn’t the Lord Himself. 

Her tears had slipped in, heightening the taste of the gin and tonic. 

Intoxication. Better than the Blood Himself?

Oh Lord, he was hard and aching. 

He burned, with his cock in his hand. He felt deviant, and stopped.

“You know, being a Catholic should be fucking joyful too,” he seethed. Staring upwards, he cried out, waving a soapy finger in the air.

“We were allowed women until the fourth century! And I’m having a hard time believing you never wanked off. What the fuck did you give us a dick and hands for?! And for the record, I’m having a real hard time thinking you and Mary Magdelene were just _friends_.” 

The last bits came out as a bullying sneer, bouncing evilly around the thin tiles. He heard his bedroom door being pounded and realised he was in a vicious shouting match with the water.

“Sorry Pam! Sorry!!” he called out, then offered an apology about having dropped his soap and wash cloth. The sounds stopped.

Feeling like a pillock, he finished washing himself. The water was rapidly turning cold, and feeling chastised, he found he could easily ignore his softening cock, and went to bed. 

If he dreamt of red lips, a sharp nose and wickedly sparkling brown eyes, kneeling and open to him, wrapped around his cock, giving and taking, taking, taking, it was no one’s business but his subconscious and the sheets.

\--- + + + ---

She’d seen foxes before in London. Not often, but regularly enough that it wasn’t that incredible to her. They were more or less part of London’s urban wildlife now, along with the occasional garden hedgehog and feral pigeons that shat uranium and never had all their toes.

His reaction had been more intriguing by far than a mangey Renard seeking a stray scrap in someone’s back garden.

After he’d warned her off him, retreating behind the walls of his church, she found herself looking for foxes everywhere.

In the corner of her eye, she’d think she saw a hint of a bushy ginger tail and nearly give herself whiplash trying to catch it out – only to find it was nothing. Just a figment of her overactive imagination, or maybe sad, horny hormones producing Basil Brush where there was nothing but a little spray of coppertips, growing out of someone’s front garden.

There was a phrase never to be repeated again: horny hormones producing Basil Brush. She shuddered for her childhood, but then grinned against the horror.

Never let it be said she couldn’t laugh in the face of utter and complete bleak, abject… something.

It wasn’t love. Couldn’t be.

It was just some kind of thrill of the chase.

Like that useless therapist had said, she was likely just looking to fuck God. Probably to see how God would react. Maybe to make herself feel powerful. Validated. The usual shit.

In the corner of her heart, she had the thought: every fuck she’d ever had, every person she’d ever screwed, even poor old, sensitive Harry, had taken her one step closer to this moment. To a priest she couldn’t have, wasn’t even sure why she even wanted, but somehow was connected to something she was being drawn towards, inexorably. Almost unwillingly. 

She’d had hot men before. She’d met men who had made her laugh. Women too.

She’d found package deals she couldn’t have, and they hadn’t made her lurch from her comfort zone like this. They didn’t make her think that a yip in the bushes might be a laughing fox, late at night.

It was all becoming much too big. It wasn’t even feeling forbidden so much as welcoming, and that was unacceptable for other reasons too vast and complex to contemplate.

She didn’t have a word for what she wanted, but it was a chasm as deep as the ocean, and she was drowning in her need and repulsion for it.

“I’m here!” she said into the darkness surrounding her. It was a void of emptiness and chaos that birthed her. She floated in the cosmos of stardust and billions of years after the big bang – the biggest orgasm of them all. The stars were like sparkling drops of cum across the vast black velvet of a blanket of raw, screaming nothingness. (Really, someone should clean it up.) She stood in the plains of creation, and she realised she was terrified and furious.

“I’m here! And if you’re here, and if you can hear me, I want you to hear me. If I’m made in your image, then I think it’s only fair that you’re made in mine. So I have to ask: if you, God, are love, like your stupid, contradictory book, written by stupid, misogynistic men, really says, then really, and I ask this in every single sense of the word: WHERE IS THE GODDAMNED LOVE?” 

It was a howl of sarcastic rage, reeking of desperation, of despair, loneliness, and emptiness.

She woke up in her bedroom, tears streaking down her face. She was disoriented and afraid. Like she’d done something wrong, but her chest heaved in that way that told her she wasn’t remotely sorry. She’d do it again. Whatever it was, she’d do it again.

With that thought, she reached for her mobile and sent a text to the hot misogynist lawyer. She couldn’t remember his name, but that didn’t matter. When she fucked, she just blasphemed anyway; she never needed to call anyone else’s name.

All that mattered was that everything would go away for a little while. Little deaths by little inches. 

“Ten inches,” she muttered to one side. She laughed, like she was sharing an inside joke to someone who knew she was clever. Only it felt so hollow, so empty, and she stared at the reply text that confirmed he was ready for her hot little kitty, 9pm, sharp.

\--- + + + --- 


	2. Dilige et quod vis fac

" _Here we do not speak evil of anyone._ " – St Augustine of Hippo, 354 – 430 AD. This sentence is said to have been written in large words on the wall of his room in the north African town of Hippo Regius, now Annaba, Algeria.

\--- + + + ---

Violet.

They called it the colour violet in the seminary, a particular blend of blue and scarlet, but he always thought of it as plum. 

He’d loved a girl in Cork, or at least thought he might have, once upon a time, and she’d loved to quote that poem about plums as he’d complained about her freezing feet.

“Eat the plum in my icebox,” Anna would giggle naughtily into his ear as she hooked her icy toes into the vulnerable backs of his knees.

“When you put it like that, it just sounds weird,” he would grump, rolling over in a huff. 

She would climb over him and splay her cold and warm body over his, rubbing her cold hands over and over his chest and arms. 

“Forgive me,” she would whisper against his mouth, never kissing but holding herself above him. “Forgive me!” A lick and a swipe of her tongue against her own mouth. “They were so delicious.” A grind on his lengthening cock. “Sweet.” Another grind. “Cold.” He remembered giving up, grunting, and with a chuckle, hefting her over his face to bury his tongue into the dripping warmth of her cunt, her icy toes slipping under his armpits. And for a time, he had warmed her up, warmed them both.

They’d been happy, hadn’t they? He had thought so. Maybe? 

The sex, alcohol and drugs weren’t really cutting it for him, and Anna’s unhappy eyes kept asking him: what are you looking for? What am I missing? He had no answers to give her, and one day when he came home to an empty flat, he just couldn’t blame her. _What’s missing in me?_ He had no answer to that. He had just known that there was a bottomless ache inside of him that never seemed to heal, and a yawning chasm that just deepened the more he tried to fill it. 

He saw the first fox when he threw out the last of Anna’s stuff that she’d left behind. He had quickly gathered all her stuff up, all the remains of a person who had just ghosted away, and was tossing it all into the bins behind the flat when he saw it. The red fox had entranced him at first, its amber gaze pinned upon him as though it could see into the howling gaps in his soul. 

He had stamped his foot. ‘It’ll run now, surely,’ he had thought. 

A long pink tongue had lolled out from a white muzzle and black whiskers. He thought he heard a whisper in the wind, a whistle across the whites of canine teeth. 

‘Fuck me, that evil little fuck is _smiling_ at me!’

He ran. And he had not stopped running from them ever since.

At seminary, he remembered reading the scriptures about the raising of the first tabernacle and how Yahweh had ordered the Israelites to adorn it with purple tapestries, the most expensive colour in the entire ancient world. A tiny vial of purple dye could be extracted from rare sea snails, but only after through the tedious and difficult recipe developed by the Phoenicians, who invented the process of crushing, scraping, filtering, salting, drying, and ultimately grinding the snails’ glands to produce the precious pigment. A hundred pounds of snails couldn't dye the front of a tunic, let alone a robe or an altar covering. The colour was instead used for decorative stripes of colour. The more a person could afford, the larger the stripe, and thus the more precious the fabric. Yet Exodus had been crystal clear. The tabernacle would be adorned in purple, and for the priestly robes of Aaron, his sons, and all their descendants forever, they were to wear woven in finely twisted linen yarns the sacred colours of blue, scarlet, and purple.

His heart ached a little. For Jews, marriage was never forbidden. They could have wives and children. ‘I’ll go up to three,’ she’d said. He shook his head ruefully, trying not to smile at the memory. _‘Okay - two.’_ He scrubbed his face again. He had so badly wanted to divest himself of what he had come from, and instead to connect with that sacred, almost mythical pedigree. He had been completely unable to wait, and in a pique of ecstasy, ordered that glorious Gothic plum chasuble all the way from Gammarelli’s, tailor to the last seventeen popes, including the most recent, though Pope Francis was known to eschew as much of the pomp and pageantry as possible. 

He supposed the Holy Father was trying to adhere to his vow of poverty as much as he could, given his circumstances as Bishop of Rome. He had scandalously refused to move into the Apostolic Palace. He used gold-plated silver or other silver jewellery, often hand-me-downs from previous popes. He outright refused to wear the famous red leather papal shoes. He continued to wear his plain black shoes like all ordinary priests were bound by previous papal decrees to wear. No word on the red silk socks, but he thought it likely that Francis was probably opting for the plain black too.

He thought about violet as he contemplated phoning his confessor. 

As ever, it all came down to the thorny issue of _full knowledge_. 

He had bought the plum chasuble fully knowing he could only ever wear it for three out of four Sundays of Advent, five out of six Sundays of Lent, and Holy Saturday. He could get away with putting it on for All Souls’ Day, and perhaps the odd Requiem Mass, if the grieving families wouldn’t mind, but otherwise, it would just sit in his wardrobe, gathering dust. Most of the year, he wore green. Truly, the order might have been better served with buying literally anything else. Its colour and purpose was to represent two things only: waiting and repentance. He phoned his confessor and asked him to come around before five. A deviation to the routine. 

“Of course. You all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. A lie. He sighed and said, “Well actually, no, not really. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

When he arrived, he eagerly clasped hands with the older man. He’d been his mentor throughout the seminary and been instrumental in placing him in London. He’d been his confessor for years, and seating him with a cup of Barry’s was the closest he’d felt to being home in a while. The water wasn’t quite the same, but it still had the same gritty hardness at least.

“What’s goin’ on,” the older priest asked him. “And no shite.”

He laughed and ducked his head, feeling like a younger man with so much less to lose for a glorious few moments. He needed that. He scratched at his neck, feeling the collar, and sighed. The older man looked at him and thought about the young man he had seen about a decade before. Scrawny and pale, eyes bloodshot in a dying riot of anger and despair. He was burning up inside with a cascade of desire for direction and love, and he had absolutely nowhere else to take it. He had wandered into a Wednesday afternoon vigil and sat at the very back, an old black plastic rosary in his chewed-up hands. He wore a grey hooded sweatshirt over a puffy jacket, faded blue jeans, well-worn Doc Marten boots, and the solemn air of old Catholic familiarity that hung about him like a cloud of foggy incense that had never quite dissipated. 

He could spot the dyed-in-the-wool recovering Catholics a mile away. These were the children of Irish Catholics who had been disillusioned from birth, brought up in the Latin Rite, but given nothing but abuse, hate, and shame from within and without. And quite rightfully, they had left the church in droves. And the church had done nothing at all to repent of its sins, let alone bring them back. And so, it was of no surprise to him that the young man gave him nothing to work with, only sat at the back and listened. And the old priest offered nothing but the barest nod when acknowledging parishioners at the door.

And thus, it went on. The weeks turned into months. It was a cat and mouse game, never knowing who the cat was, and who was the mouse. Until one day, the young man spoke to him. And as it turned out, he had such a mouth - he just kept speaking. And with joy in his heart, the old man had listened.

Time went on. And they had kept talking and listening to each other. A mentorship had blossomed, and the young man had begun to heal. The old priest listened and offered counsel where needed, just as he listened today. When the young priest offered the G&Ts from M&S, he didn’t hesitate to accept. It wasn’t the first confession he’d had from him when they were both drinking in the afternoon. It definitely wouldn’t be the last.

“I don’t know what she needs,” lamented the young man. 

‘Ah,’ thought the old man, his heart becoming fearful. A woman. A quick prayer set his heart aflame. He had seen many come into the order and many leave. It was the way of things. He looked at his young friend and prayed, ‘Please Lord, be gentle to him.’

To his friend he shook his head.

“Yes, you do.”

The young man looked up from his drink, annoyed.

“No, I fuckin’ don’t.”

“Yes, you do!” His spirit was getting into it now.

“No, I don’t!” Red flushed the younger man’s face, and his brown eyes, usually so soft and sweet, were starting to bulge out, comically and manically.

The elder laughed, his rounded belly jiggling. He laughed harder at the priggish expression on his protégé’s face.

“Ooohhh, you definitely know.”

“Oh, fuck off!” He was outraged. “What are you suggesting?”

“Oh, calm down. Nothing of _that_ sort. I’m saying that you already know what she needs. And whether that has anything to do with you is a completely separate issue.”

Taken aback and slightly mollified, the younger priest swigged his canned cocktail. 

“I already sent her away. She’s banned.” As if that solved the issue.

The older man’s eyes turned cold and he said, “How like Jesus to deny her entrance to His Father’s house just because you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

They stared at each other until the younger man accepted the chastisement by simply bowing his head with remorse. After a moment, he put his can on the table. Making the Sign of the Cross, he said very quietly, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession.”

His mentor sighed. He laid his hands on his friend’s brown head for a short moment. Then he pulled the long and thin violet silk stole from his pocket. It was very old and cherished, like everything of real worth. It had been passed down to him from his mentor, and likely from his mentor before him. Like all the priests in their order, they shared everything they had, and nothing was truly their own. It had been carefully folded in a square, and with a gentle flick of his wrist, it fluttered like a fragile ribbon into the air. The old priest put the soft violet stole over his own head, centred his mind, and began the sacrament.

Not a moment later, they were stuck in an argument about whether his kissing the ‘hot café woman’ outside the confessional box, in the nave, constituted a venial or a mortal sin. 

“I didn’t plan to do it,” his younger friend argued. “That by itself means it can’t be a mortal sin. I had _no full knowledge_ that I was going to stick my tongue down her throat!”

The old man spluttered around his G&T and furiously grabbed at a nearby tea towel, trying to save his stole. 

“I’ll accept that’s how it started,” he grumbled. “But you said something changed after this… ill-conceived not-a-Catholic confession of hers. Which – by the way – we haven’t even gotten to, yet. It went from you tempting a confession out of her, which I cannot believe you’d even attempt sober, to… what exactly?”

The younger priest looked a little green at that, but after a moment acquiesced with a rueful nod and another swig of alcohol. “I dunno,” he said, putting the can against his head for a moment, then gesturing with it a bit too wildly for the older man’s nerves. “I just wanted to get her to open up. To get inside her head.”

“ _You_ wanted, it’s what _you_ wanted.” The warning was in his voice, and the censorship was clear.

“Yes.” 

The reply was swift and harsh. 

“Fuck.”  


He swallowed more of his drink, struggled with his words, then continued.

“At first, I really thought it would help her. Then, maybe it’d help us both. That I could fix what had happened in her café. Mend the bridge and get us back on track. The screen would help get her past it. Because … God, she’s in so much pain,” his voice broke. “It’s that pain that echoes in this huge… broken cavern of her, in her voice, I can see it and hear it, somewhere I can almost reach out and touch it, and I can’t help but want to—.”

He was holding his hand out towards something. He stop and broke off, embarrassed at his blatant need laid bare to his mentor. His confessor waited, knowing that they were getting somewhere at last. 

“I listened as she got close to it,” he said quietly. “Somewhere dark. And then she just wouldn’t take me any further. She took a left turn and then we were talking about her fear of letting go, of what it would do to her if she moved on. And I knew that she was talking how she just doesn’t know how to do anything except find peace through validation, even though she’s rejected just about every form of it, and… I just wanted to let her have some peace. And me. Some peace. Just for a little while.”

The old priest looked at him and said, very quietly, “Well. Addiction’s a bitch.”

The younger man barked a laugh through his tears, and leaned over to weep. The old man let him, saying nothing. Knowing there was nothing to do or say but let him get it out. After the storm passed, he handed over the tissues and both men stared away from each other as though nothing had happened. 

“You can’t be her validation.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He looked a little wild-eyed and angry for a moment, and in the dying embers of the daylight he thought he heard a yip. He startled, jumped up, and looked out the window.

“Is there a fucking fox out there? D’you see one? Fucking bastards!” The old priest sighed and pulled the man’s arm gently, oh so gently. He sat him back down in the kitchen chair and said, “Let’s finish this, eh?” The young man was still looking a bit too spooked, but he let himself be drawn back into the sacrament. 

“The wedding.”

“Ah, fuck. Yeah, the wedding.”

He hung his head and then just as quickly, looked up with hope flaring in his eyes.

“D’you think—”

“Fuck no. I’m not doing it for you. Did you buy another chasuble for it?” 

He looked down, a little ashamed. The old man tsked, aware of that vice too.

“I think you’ve got to face it head on.”

Young, tortured, panicked brown eyes met patient, old green ones. 

“Is that my penance?”

“Absolutely not. Your penance is a full rosary. And you will think about that wedding as you pray. Now say your Act of Contrition.”

The young priest closed his eyes, chuckled as his tears fell, and began his prayer.

The old man lifted his hands and set them over his friend’s head, said a fervently meant Prayer of Absolution over him, and blessed him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He looked the poor devil in the eye and meant every word when he said, “Go in peace.” The old priest fought the urge to hug him. He was no saint, and he had been down his own hard paths too. It was no easy calling, being a Catholic priest. As he left the flat, he ruminated on the meaning of the parable of the wedding feast, and worried for his friend. 

“How camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” he murmured to himself, as he wandered back towards the nearest Tube station. “And the king said, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and him into outer darkness.’” He sighed and began his own silent rosary, focusing on the Luminous Mysteries as the Tube carried him back to his own flat. As he came to the second decade, the wedding at Cana, he prayed fervently for his friend. He prayed for surprise miracles, and, on a whim, for mothers.

\--- + + + --- 

When he saw the plum bra, he was past thinking about full knowledge and whether sex with her would be a venial or a mortal sin. There was a hunger in her. It was an all-encompassing well of need, and it called to him. It pulled to a long-neglected, gut-wrenching loneliness in him. He saw her naked longing, so honest and direct. He saw her laughing at his need for a collar and his patriarchal house of cards, hung with wool and precious silks, embroidered by poorly paid women who stood in the shadows, never being allowed to lift the Eucharist. She saw it all, the hypocrisy and the metaphor, and still she concluded he was somehow worthy of her time. 

‘Why?’ he asked himself. ‘Why me?’ She clearly didn’t lack for attention, if Mr Nine Orgasms was anything to go by. It didn’t matter. There was a stillness in the long, haunting look in her eyes. It resonated in his soul, and lost to that emotion, he swept her into his arms, his lips parting hers again and again, relishing how they fit together. He smeared the crimson on his mouth, remembering earlier, emptier times, and banished the memories just as quickly.

“I won’t stop this time,” he murmured into her ear. ‘Mortal, mortal, mortal,’ chanted a voice in his mind. She whined, unable to speak. 

“Don’t go anywhere. Stay with me. Say you understand.”

“I understand,” she panted, and kissed him again, her fingers shaking on his clerical shirt.

“Good,” he said, petting her hair gently, pulling away and kissing her tenderly, long and deeply. He took his fill of her as she worked his belt away and he toed off his black leather shoes. He lifted her and grunted in satisfaction as he felt her wrap her long, slim legs around his waist. He stood behind the sofa, sat her on the edge of its back, and balanced her there for a moment as he looked into her eyes.

“Condoms?” 

“Upstairs.”

“Good,” he said again, enjoying the spike of pleasure as her mouth opened wide to let his tongue back in. He pushed her black trench coat off. Then he grinned wickedly as he tumbled her back carefully, holding her knees and legs over the back of the couch. She stuffed a few cushions under her back, giving herself what she needed for support. “Hold fast,” he warned.

She hitched her breath as he leaned over, kissed her mound, and slid the plum silk aside. She blasphemed, and the voice in his mind said, ‘mortal, mortal, mortal.’ He licked his first pussy in years, smelled coconuts, and laughed when he thought of the fake ones from the fête. He thought of the one she had tried to steal, and viciously tugged at her silk, eliciting another moan.

“It’s been a little while, but…” He slipped fingers in and crooked them up. "Yeah, there you are." She clenched. She was trying to ride his fingers and his mouth, but she had no further control as she was too far down on the couch. This had been his intention; if he let her take over, it would be over far too soon for him. She was tall enough that she could only hold onto the back of the couch, the top of his head, or fall backwards to enjoy the pleasure. He could glare down at her from where he closed his mouth over her clit at last, holding her brown eyes with his as he controlled the climax from her, like the tide coming back to the shore.

“Ff…ffuck…,” she trembled.

“We’ll get there,” he promised, as he licked slowly around her clit again. Then, he mouthed her from his fingers to the top of her clit, again and again, as though he couldn’t get enough of her, but always timing it with the pull of his fingers inside of her. She cursed and tried to wriggle, and he slowed down even further. “Shhh,” he said, his eyes catching hers again as he worked her over, pressing ever more firmly inside of her as he moved his fingers, watching every reaction in her face. He let a third finger tap against her, and she mashed her mouth into a thin line, nodding frantically.

“Say what you want,” he instructed as he tongued at her clit, staring into her dark, dilated eyes. “I need to hear the words." “More,” she panted. “One more!” He slipped the third finger in, stretching her, and she panted and groaned with the intrusion. “There you go, beautiful,” he murmured, praising her. “You’re so good. So beautiful.” She stared up at him, disbelief and cynicism warring across her features. She looked away, but he followed her gaze. 

“Stop,” he commanded. “None of that. Stay with me.” He thrust the fingers hard into her, and she gasped. “Stay with me. Say you understand.” “I understand,” she huffed. He thrust a few more times. “I understand!” “Good,” he praised her, again and again. “So good. You’re so good.” He closed his lips around her clit, pressed hard against her g-spot, and worked her as hard as he could, using his other hand to press down on her belly, making it rigid and hard against his mouth. She wailed as she came in his hands, her body locked in spasms. She slapped the couch cushions, and before she was completely finished, he darted around to catch her. 

He held her on the floor, between her coffee table and the couch, crumpling the poor trench coat under them. When she opened her eyes, her breathing still laboured, she said, “Where the hell did you learn to do that?” He shook his head and kissed her. “I wasn’t always a priest.” A twinkle came into her eyes. “Can you show me what else you didn’t learn in the seminary?” He smirked, then pressed his forehead against hers. “I mean, you don’t have to,” she began. He felt her closing the doors to him, pulling away behind solid walls, the areas he had only just begun to explore. “Shh,” he replied. The tide was rising in his heart. He looked at her and kissed her again, slowly and sweetly. He cradled her face the way it was meant to be held; he held it as a holy and living testament of God’s love on earth, worthy of love, always and forever. And he kissed her the way he always wanted to kiss her; his heart was full of happiness, wonder at finding her, and in awe of the hundreds of little nudges that had pointed her to him, and him to her.

‘God gave us only one burning bush,’ he thought. ‘The rest of the time, it’s just little whispers, tiny signs, and little nudges.’ He added falling paintings to the list and stood up, offering her his hand.

“Upstairs?”

She smiled, and showed him the way.

\--- + + + --- 

After the first time, she ribbed him mercilessly about the missionary position. “So predictable,” she said, even though they had notched up to four orgasms out of her by that point. He retaliated by turning her over and growling in her ear to hold onto her headboard and not move. She snarked back about dominance and submission, and he snarled, “Yeah and fuck you for playing like you haven’t been aching for me to tie you up all night.”

She shivered. After a moment, she put her hands on the headboard. She looked back at him coquettishly. Fluttered her eyelashes like an innocent maid.

“God, you’re such a brat.”

She pouted and wriggled her butt at him. He shook his head, unamused. She flexed her toes under her butt, then wriggled again. The world stood still. Liminality surrounded them. Her hands tightened on the headboard, and she scarcely hoped to breathe.

“Safe word,” he breathed for her.

They stepped into a different world.

\--- + + + --- 

It wasn’t the edgiest BDSM either of them had ever participated in, but that was hardly the point. The point was, it was him. Holding her down. Sliding fingers and tongue into her only after she begged. And then stopping. Over and over.

He tied her hands to the headboard where she couldn’t touch him. He seemed to prefer it that way. She stared at him as he made her speak to him.

“Tell me what you want.”

She babbled about his cock, and he shook his head.

“No. Tell me what you are searching for in this life.”

At first, she tried to balk. He shut her up with drugging kisses and pinches along her nipples, gentle and mean slaps along her sides, sweet caresses of her legs and bruising teeth at her neck. He sat back and kissed every toe, massaging the insole and the sore balls of her feet. She groaned, and after a while, he slid back up her body, a man at worship, his strong hands giving every pressure point a deep tissue massage for at least a few moments. The pain was excruciating and delightful. She shouted and cursed, then moaned as the muscles released their tension.

“You carry so much pain,” he murmured as he kissed her knees. “I’m on my feet all day,” she replied. He shook his head at her, giving her a look that said he knew she was dissembling. He lifted her legs over his shoulders and settled back at her pussy, slipping his fingers in without preamble. She hissed with surprise, her mouth dropping open.

“Hullo,” he said as though he were greeting her on the street.

“Hi,” she said with uncertainty, and she gripped him with her pelvic floor.

He smiled, and began to massage her g-spot. She cursed, and he said, “Let’s try this again.” He pressed his other hand on her clit, gently stroking as it peeked out from its hood. He kissed it once, letting his tongue roll over it again and again, enjoying her gasps and wriggles of pleasure. She groaned when he stopped, considered her, and reached for the bottle of lube. She stared at him, huffing little breaths of anticipation as he coated his fingers. 

“Relax,” he said. He thrust back in, and she stopped thinking for a while. His tongue and his fingers made everything go away. It was bliss. It was all she needed. It was all she--- 

“What do you want?”

“I want to come,” she responded instantly.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

She whined in frustration and he said, “What do you want from this life?” She wanted to kick him. She tried to wriggle away. He licked at her a few times, then reached over to the open box of condoms on her nightstand. He put one foil packet in her hand.

“This is the game. You tell me what you want, and I fuck you as your reward. You can always safe word out.” She glared at him and said, “Fine. You first. What do you want?” It felt dangerously like asking him what he was doing here. About plans for the future. He stopped for a moment and said, “A week ago, I would have said I want to be the best priest I could possibly be, and serve God until the end of my days on earth.” He leaned down and started fucking her hard again, like before on the couch, with his fingers and his mouth. His cock was rock hard between them, and he badly wanted her to end this game. Her thighs were glistening, and he thought it was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. He plucked the condom from her hand and slipped it on with shaking fingers. _Mortal, mortal, mortal,_ said the voice in his mind.

“And right now, I’m just a man.”

He rubbed the fat head of his cock over her, and she shivered with longing.

“Feel that?” he asked her, breathing hard.

“That’s me and you.” He didn’t push in, just rubbed himself all over the secret parts of her. Every fold. Every part of her was exposed to him, and she loved it. He used his thumbs to hold her open. His hips pushed him around and he let her chase him, trying to catch him in her entrance. Trying to stuff him inside of her using her will and hips alone.

“What do you want?” he asked again, sweat trickling from his brow and chest, his perseverance at the very edge of snapping.

She tried to hold out. He edged her again and again with his cock and fingers, occasionally leaning over to kiss her with devastating thoroughness. Sucking on her breasts until they were sore in the best of ways. Again and again, running his cock along the edges of her pussy, over and over her engorged clit, slowing down as she built towards her orgasm, reaching back to her thighs and hips with sure, hard fingers. Coaxing her. Straining her. Willing her to spill the words.

“I want to be loved,” she sobbed. “Unconditionally. Uncontrollably. I want it all. Everything I’m not supposed to have, everything society's ever promised, everything it's never delivered - I want it all and I don’t want to ever apologise for it. And I don’t want anyone to take it away from me, never ever ever again!” Her eyes turned vicious as she rolled her hips hard against his cock. 

“And I want everyone to see the love that I have and want it for themselves. Always and forever. I want everyone to know that I have the best love, and I am the best love, and I want it all. _Right fucking now_.”

He slammed into her, sealed his mouth against hers, and gave her all the love he had to give.

\--- + + + ---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Dilige et quod vis fac." _Love and do what you will._ \- Augustine of Hippo
> 
> From the full phrase of the text 'In epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos', Ten Homilies On The Epistle Of John To The Parthians:
> 
> "Once for all, then, a short precept is given you: **Love, and do what you will** : whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good."
> 
> It has caused no end of arguments throughout the centuries about what precisely you're allowed to do as a Catholic... all in the name of love.


End file.
